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Lixee, a French company born from a DIY community, markets several products designed, among other things, for energy measurement (electricity, water, or gas). Based on a growing and engaged community, about two years ago they released a module that remains highly popular today: the Zlinky_Tic, For those who don’t know, it’s a 100% compatible and integrable Zigbee teleinformation module for Linky meters. At the end of November, the company sent me the Lixee-box in Lite version to test on the ZIWIFI32S3.
The presentation and packaging remain simple and straightforward. The Lixee-box Lite version contains the dongle-box and the Zlinky_tic v2, which allows you to:
Measure, analyze, save, as Lixee advertises
Regarding the Zlinky included in this kit, at the time I wrote a full article about it. Don’t hesitate to check it out!
The easiest way to install and find the Lixee-Box address to get the most out of the web app is to follow the official installation video. Simple and relatively effective.
For more details on all the information about the Lixee-box, feel free to consult the dedicated repository on GitHub
Close to a handcrafted product, the Lixee-Box is nonetheless a beautiful French design, simple to assemble yet effective. The semi-translucent case conceals an embedded board based on esp32-S3 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth as well as a Zigbee chip, Zigate+ version, the NXP JN5189.
In fact, this design is very reminiscent of Zigate products, both in terms of hardware and the interface used!
Once plugged into a standard USB port, the Lixee-box is adorned with a beautiful blue light; if you have followed the Lixee-box installation tutorial correctly, you will have the web address to access the interface directly.
Disassembling the Lixee-Box is very simple as mentioned above, just unscrew the two screws located under the bottom of the box and that’s it, you have access to the Holy Grail.
A relatively simple printed circuit board lies beneath:
GPIO ports are a real plus for this type of product if you want to integrate sensors or other devices.
From my experience, the company wanted to simplify the setup of an energy management interface for those new to home automation. However, the energy homepage interface offers a real advantage that isn’t yet available by default in Home Assistant.
In short, a very French interface and 100% compatible with Linky.
This box is based on a mix of lixee-zibridge repositories And there’s already existing firmware; I’m referring to Zigate v2, which allows the company to create a bridge between the ESP32-S3 and the NXP Zigbee chip.
The Zigbee chip integrates the Zigate v2 firmware.
I don’t think this choice is strategic from a hardware perspective, which is why I’m saying this! Simply that the company could have directly used an ESP32 chip that integrates the Zigbee chip, such as the ESP32-H2 or C5/C6. The dongle would have been much smaller and simpler to manufacture. But using the ESP-IDF repository also means learning, creating, and coding an entirely new interface.
Lixee is based on the work of Zigate+ for the support and management of the Zigbee coordinator.
To complement this article, I’ve created a video that demonstrates the functions of the interface of Lixee-Box
By the time I’d run the tests, I’d been able to release two updates, which is great. It also means development is quite active, although I have to admit I’m not the fastest writer at the moment.
The homepage is really interesting and relatively well-designed. You plug your Zlinky into the Linky meter, integrate it into the ecosystem, and from then on, there’s nothing to do except wait for the energy data to be uploaded.
Finally, an energy page designed for French users.
Below, you’ll find an animated GIF of the Lixee-Box updates
The Lixee box allows you to integrate other Zigbee modules into the interface; however, [the list of modules is relatively limited].(https://github.com/fairecasoimeme/LiXee-Box?tab=readme-ov-file#-appareils-lixee-compatibilit%C3%A9-compl%C3%A8te){: target=”_blank”}. The integration works relatively well, however I did encounter one flaw: when a module is disconnected for a certain time it then has difficulty rejoining the network.
Currently, Zigbee support is quite limited.
What would be interesting would be to include support for [Zigbee2mqtt].(https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/){: target=”_blank”}
| Power | 5 VDC via USB-A port |
| MCU | ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 |
| Frequency | 240Mhz |
| SRAM | 512Kb |
| PSRAM | 8Mb |
| ROM | 16Mb |
| WiFi | 802.11b/g/n |
| Zigbee | 3.0 |
| Bluetooth | Low Energy 5.0 |
| Interfaces | 1x ZiGate+ module 1x USB port (power + UART0) 1x Reset button 1x Flash button (for ESP32S3 - GPIO0) 1x ESP / FTDI selector (to redirect UART0 to the ESP32 or to the ZiGate) 12x GPIOs |
The Lixee-box provides an entry point into the world of home automation, geared towards novices who want a first glimpse into their home’s energy consumption. The integration of the MQTT function and the discovery option make it interoperable with Home Assistant or Jeedom. However, version 2.14 makes setting up scenarios complex. Regarding the integration of Zigbee modules, it gets the job done, but the options are relatively limited. The lack of interoperability with zigbee2mqtt is regrettable.
Latency issues on the homepage may be fixed in future updates.
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